The Co-authored Self: Family Stories and the Construction of Personal Identity

Hardcover | November 3, 2015

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Questions about identity are perennially intriguing, and vexing, to scholars and non-scholars alike. How do we know who we are? How do we define ourselves? How much are we the agents of our own identities, and how much are we defined by others? In The Co-authored Self, Kate McLean addressesthe question of how an individual comes to develop an identity by focusing on the process of interpersonal storytelling, particularly through the stories people hear, co-tell, and share of and with their families. McLean details how identity development is a collaborative construction between theindividual and his or her narrative ecology. She argues that family stories play a powerful role in defining identities, for better or for worse; it is through these family stories that the self takes on its earliest and most lasting form. Situating the process of identity development inadolescence and emerging adulthood, she shows through quantitative and qualitative data - with compelling narrative excerpts throughout - the ways in which families both support and constrain identity development by the stories they tell.

About The Author

Kate C. McLean, PhD, is an Associate Professor at Western Washington University. Her research centers on the development of narrative identity in adolescence and emerging adulthood, particularly as it develops in social contexts, and as it relates to individual differences in personality and
adjustment.

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Table of Contents

1. Building the Narrative EcologySection 1 Setting the Stage2. Developmental Considerations3. Theoretical Approaches to Identity Development and the Power of NarrativeSection 2 Master Narratives and Personal Narratives: The Stories our Families Tell About Us4. Two Storied Paths to Identity Integration5. Resisting StoriesSection 3 Broadening the Narrative Ecology: Another Story, An Other's Story6. Parents are People: Parent's Identities7. Parents' stories: Children's IdentitiesSection 4 Broader Contexts of Storytelling: Gender and Peers8. The Gendered Socialization of Narrative and Identity9. Peers and Family StoriesSection 5 Conclusion10. The End of the Story, for nowAppendix: Methodological IssuesReferencesAbout the AuthorIndex